At a ministerial press conference on Tuesday, the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Adeniji Kazeem said that barring any last minute change, the state is ready to execute inmates on death row in Lagos prisons including the General-Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, CPA, Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, a.k.a Rev. King.
In his speech Kazeem said while on a visit to the state prisons recently prison officials drew his attention to the highhandedness of those on death row as they felt that they had certain rights which excluded them from being executed. He noted that there is move towards executing the inmates.
In a swift reaction, Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), wrote to the Lagos State Government indicating that the planned execution of death row inmates in the state would violate a subsisting judgment delivered in 2012 by the High Court of Lagos State which ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional to execute the condemned inmates.
However, a Lecturer in the department of International Law and Jurisprudence at the Lagos State Univerisity Mr. Abu Yekini has proffered a pragmatic solution to the issue:
Lagos State and proposed execution of inmates on death row.
I propose that the government should adopt the approach of Islamic law as a pragmatic solution. If the deceased relatives are willing to accept compensation, let the inmate’s family raise the agreed compensation and set the murderer free. If they insist on justice, then, let the inmate be executed and stop feeding him with tax payers’ money. Those who are working are being owed salaries and a condemned prisoner is being fed for free. The last time I checked, the Prison budget was about N17 billion for feeding.
This appears pragmatic enough.
What do you think?
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